The Honesty Box

"[One] factor that pollutes laboratory experiments is scrutiny. When a scientist brings a lump of uranium into a lab, or a meal worm or a colony of bacteria, that object isn't likely to change its behavior just because it's being watched by someone in a white lab coat.

      For human beings, however, scrutiny has a powerful effect. Do you run a red light when there's a police car- or, increasingly thes days, a mounted camera- at the intersection? Thought not. Are you more likely to wash your hands in the office restroom if your boss is already washing hers? Thought so.

       Our behavior can be changed by even subtler levels of scrutiny. At the university of Newcastle upon Tyne in England, a psychology professor named Melissa Bateson surreptitiously ran an experiment in her own department's break room. Customarily, faculty members paid for coffee and otehr drinks by dropping money into an "honesty box." Each week, Bateson posted a new price list. The prices never changed, but the small photography atop the list did. On odd weeks, there was a picture of flowers; on even weeks, a pair of human eyes. When the eyes were watching, Bateson's colleagues left nearly three times as much money in the honestly box. So the next time you laugh when a bird is frightened off by a silly scarecrow, remember that scarecrows work on human beings too."

From: Superfreakanomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner